Waiting for Fuel
by D. M. Evans
Summary: Injured and banished from Wolfram and Hart, Spike has to find a way to get back in their good graces and gets help from an unexpected source
1. Running for Cover

WAITING FOR FUEL By D.M. Evans Feedback - Rating: PG-13 Timeline: Up to Destiny AtS 5 and goes AR there after. Disclaimer - Mr Whedon owns all the characters within, not me, but we all already knew that. Summary - Injured and banished from Wolfram and Hart Spike has to find a way back into everyone's good graces and gets help from an unexpected source. Author's Note #1: Written for the Angel Book of Days - Winter Challenge http://www.moracle.co.uk/angelbod/contents.html Author's Note #2: I'll admit it, the h/c genre tripped me up. I can usually write Spike well but it was the genre part I wrestled with this time. I hope what I came up with isn't too far off course and that it's still an enjoyable story even if it is. The Challenge Written for: Kara Requirements: Character: Spike Genre: h/c And: no other requests Restrictions: please don't pair him with Harmony Spoiler Max Level: Unrestricted Rating Max Level: NC-17  
  
Dig deeper this time down beneath the impossible pain of our history beneath unknown bones beneath the bedrock of the mystery Fuel - Ani DiFranco  
  
I managed to make a real cock up of things. The last time I had done it up this bad was when Buffy dropped that organ on my head. No, that wasn't my fault. I had piss poor help that delivered not one but two Slayers right to me at the worst possible time.  
  
This was more like that time with Adam, yet another ally who crapped out on me. Trying to turn everyone against each other is tricky business. It takes a skilled hand. I was good at it. I had nearly torn apart the Scoobies. I don't know why they didn't kill me. I didn't think I was going to get so lucky with Angel.  
  
He was screaming for my blood. That wasn't too unusual. He and I were like fuel and an open flame, always have been. It's been a vicious cycle of admiration, jealousy, distrust, friendship and one upmanship since he first took me under his wing.  
  
Angel knew I was out to steal his place in any which way I could, right down to that prophecy. Granted, that's probably not something I could just take, especially if it hinged on me being a good person. I wasn't being one right now. I was a total bastard. I played on Fred's good heart and got access to her files. I played the fellow Brit to Wes who was feeling adrift. I knew the look, understood the feeling and that got me access to the library. Pretending to appreciate Gunn's deus ex machina intelligence, I got the client files. Anything else I needed was filled in by that twit, Harmony. Damn, I almost miss those blokes.  
  
I wasn't really trying to set one against the other. They already were and just didn't realize it. They only came together when the threat was high. They didn't even see how isolated they were. Okay, I didn't know them very well so maybe they were always like this but I doubt it. If I had wanted them all gone, I could probably have picked them off with ease.  
  
I didn't want that. I was still clinging to the delusion I could be a good man. Part of me wanted to be. What I was doing with Angel didn't fit into good or evil, at least not as vampires see it. We tended to take things. It was our nature. My Machiavellian flare let me put together pieces of a puzzle they all had and didn't see how it fit.  
  
I could see that Wolfram and Hart was just stringing Peaches along. They were keeping him occupied, making him look one way while something big was happening in the other direction. I probably should have just told Angel what was going on, be a team player instead of trying to exploit it. It's hard to go against your own nature.  
  
I didn't realize how much I had to lose. I learned quick. I took what I knew to Eve, to blackmail her into giving me something to trump Angel. She pointed me to a local college to a scrawny little kid with a bad hair cut. Someone should have told the short-arse and his friends the Punk era really ended thirty years ago no matter how hard they tried to keep it alive.  
  
I never did figure out what Angel would want with some whelp with hair bleached whiter than mine, tipped with blue and gelled into spikes. I was still trying to puzzle out what he might mean to Angel when my grandsire caught me on campus stalking the skinny bastard. One thing was clear, Eve hadn't lied to me. This boy had some kind of important to Angel and I'm betting she told Angel where to find me. I know Peaches doesn't usually hang out on college campuses. I found myself locked into one hell of a fight with Angel when I said I wouldn't back off the boy until I figured out how he fit in the puzzle. Obviously from the broken nose, cracked ribs, loosened teeth and fang marks I received, Punk Boy had some place in the jigsaw.  
  
Of course, the only thing I had gotten for my broken bones and torn flesh was a threat on my life if I ever came back to Wolfram and Hart's building and most especially if I ever was caught sniffing around Punk Boy again. Angel meant it. Oh, he's meant it in the past before, too. We have had our share of flare ups. Angel and I were always fires waiting for fuel. We even enjoyed the battles. This wasn't one of those enjoyable times. This would be me out in the cold for a good long time as far as my grandsire was concerned.  
  
Maybe I wouldn't have minded so much if I wasn't being hunted by Eve and the resources Wolfram and Hart put at her disposal. Peaches didn't know about that. The bitch knew Angel had hung me out to dry. No one had my back. I don't know how she tracked me to the place where I was licking the wounds Angel had given me. I barely had time to react before the fire bomb came through the roof. I could hear her laughing as I managed to scramble into the sewer, extinguishing myself in the filth. Fuck, Dru, now I know what you felt like when you came to me for comfort back in Sunnydale after Angel torched you and Darla. The pain went beyond excruciating. I couldn't see myself, of course, but I could feel that I had lost most of my hair and parts of my face. My shoulders, back and chest were blackened in spots. Blisters had been raised on my arms. Moving was next to impossible.  
  
I stretched out in my new hidey hole, trying to get comfortable. I had robbed a hospital of good human blood. It tasted funny with all the thinners in it but better than pig's blood. I didn't really like hiding out in a coffin but it was needed. I had dumped the poor sot out of his box and climbed in after making sure the skeleton wasn't visible from the crypt door. There was only one way into the crypt; good and bad. I was hoping this hideout was just for the day. I didn't like having a place without a bolt-hole, especially not when I have something like Wolfram and Hart hounding me.  
  
I hurt too much to care that I was alone and a little afraid, if I had to confess to it. Comfort would have been as cold as the winter winds whipping the crypt, colder even given that southern California couldn't do up winter right, not like England could. I shut my eyes, hoping for sleep. 


	2. Painful history

CHAPTER TWO  
  
Waking up was a bitch. Luckily I had sense enough to keep a blood packet for brekkie. I pushed the coffin open just a crack to make sure I was still alone. I figured the fact I wasn't chained inside and on fire was a clue I hadn't been found. The sun was where I thought it'd be, almost down.  
  
I pushed the coffin all the way open, a tatter of skin dangling from the back of my hand. Nothing rushed me from any blind spots so I took the time to worry at that hanging flesh. The skin of both arms peeled off like a snake's. The skin under it was fiery pink but more healed than the blistered mess of last night.  
  
Having a little sunlight to kill, I opened the tubing on the blood bag and got myself a little nourishment. The mere act of sucking hurt and it was difficult since most of my lips had been burnt off. I poked gently at my face, feeling the thick scabs, reminding me of the time Dru nursed me back to health after Buffy snapped my spine and burnt the church down around me. I could use some of Dru's doctoring right about now.  
  
The scabs didn't hurt...yet. I knew the nerves were toast. Soon enough though my system would start to heal and then the worst of the burns would hurt like being on fire all over again as the nerves grew back.  
  
Moving hurt. I would have to buck up though because I didn't want to be stuck in this crypt any longer. I needed someplace more defensible. As I drank, I scrubbed a finger against the heavy scab on my shoulder. Parts of it cracked off and bled but the flesh underneath was better than the charcoal I had gone to bed with.  
  
Yeah, I definitely wanted a nice soft bed and Mum waiting on me hand and foot. Mother would have done that, nursed me for days, longer than needed really. She worried over every sniffle I ever had, always waiting for tuberculosis to lay me low, or typhoid or whatever the disease of the day was. Her attention had been smothering, running my life, ruining it, always worrying about getting home to Mum, doing what she wanted to the point I had become a joke to my friends. Part of me still yearned for it though, the reliance, the comfort, the freedom of not having to make decisions. Even if Mum controlled me too much, I loved her enough to try to keep her forever. Angelus and Darla surprised me by agreeing with Dru that it was a bad idea. I didn't know them well enough to understand that I should have listened to them. It would have saved on the creepiness. I mean, was Mum in the role of Jocasta my whole life? It makes me shudder just to think about it, so, I wasn't going to think about it. I was hurting enough without adding that.  
  
I took stock of my situation. My shirt and jacket had burned but my pants were only smoky and covered with filth. The cell phone Fred had given me was still on my belt. How pathetically human of me. Still, it was going to come in handy now. I knew who to call for a little mothering. I dialed the number.  
  
"'Allo, Fred. Can you do me a favor, luv? I've made a real cock up of things and could use some hel-"  
  
"I don't care what you need, Spike, not after what you did to Angel," Fred snarled into the phone.  
  
"What I did?" Oh, no I'm in for it now. Angel got Fred pissed at me.  
  
"Don't play innocent, Spike. I know you did something to Angel. We all know. I wouldn't be coming back here and don't call me any more."  
  
And with that she was gone. Angel really was serious this time. He wanted me gone and he was likely to get his wish. I was really out on my own and with my usual perfect timing. Night had fallen so I got to my feet, hard as it was and headed out. I didn't have a car or clothes and I needed to rectify at least one of those conditions. The latter was easier and more important. I couldn't wander around half naked and fried. I needed to cover up as much as I could.  
  
It wasn't too far of a walk to a Goodwill store. Breaking and entering is one of those skills you don't lose. I didn't linger long, just grabbed some stuff, pants, shirt, new coat and baseball hat to hide myself as best I could without looking like Claude Raines desperate to be seen. I had vagrant chic down but it was better than risking going home while Angel was on full boil, especially since he had the others roiling, too.  
  
So, to keep myself free of woody intrusions, I headed out to find another place to bunk down for the day. Along the way I did manage to score a car, a heap of a purple Geo Storm tricked out with glass packs and purple velour upholstery on the dash. It did take me the better part of the night to find something squatter-free, light proof enough with more than one access including a passage to the sewers in case Wolfram and Hart came for me in the day, which would be the smart thing to do.  
  
I felt hungry as I lay down on some of the bedding I had stolen and carted along. I wadded up my new jacket under my head for a pillow. My body thrummed like a foot asleep, all pins and needles. I'd never get to sleep like this but somehow I did.  
  
I wasn't sure how long I was out but the sun felt much lower in the sky. Waking up was even worse this time. The nerves had regrown some and it felt like someone was using a cheese grater on my face while kicking me in the love spuds. To further complicate my misery, a white light flashed, blinding me.  
  
Crying out, I tried to move away from the light. I couldn't see through my rapidly blinking, tearing eyes if I was under attack. Nothing seemed interested in pulling me apart. My vision came back and there was Darla in a white gown with a Hollywood angel glow about her. The glow faded.  
  
I let my head drop back against my wadded-up coat. "Fuck me, this is the last thing I need."  
  
"My thoughts exactly." Darla ghosted through several objects to come sit next to me on my makeshift bed. I felt a jealous twinge that I wasn't unique in being a vampire ghost. Of course, I wasn't a wraith any more as much as I might want to be at the moment. At least that way I couldn't hurt like I did now. She looked at me with a cattish expression on her face. I knew that superior look well. Darla and I had only ever tolerated each other, at best. "You've been irritating my sweet boy again," she said, not a hint of doubt in her voice.  
  
I bobbed my head. "That blighter was never sweet and I don't even know what I did to set him off. When did you get dusted again? Dru told me you had been brought back from the ashes the poof left you in. She was quite thrilled about the full circle of granddaughter giving birth to her own grandmother. Kept going on about phoenixes." I scratched my chest; big mistake, the scabs pulled and hurt when I did.  
  
"She always was peculiar, even before Angelus got hold of her." Darla sighed. "I told him not to break her. A seer with her wits around her is more useful than one who raves like a loon but would he listen?"  
  
"Please." I snorted. "Like you could tell Angelus anything."  
  
"Exactly." Her mouth twisted wryly.  
  
"So, how'd you get dusted? Angel? I knew he was after you and Dru."  
  
"He made a half assed attempted to kill me, followed by whole assed, shouldered, cocked attempt to screw my brains out so he could lose his soul." Darla smiled lasciviously this time. I shrugged. I was used to seeing those two rutting like wild beasts. They loved having an audience so mere allusions to the act didn't bother me. "Only he found out he has to be totally happy to lose his soul. The ungrateful bastard said I didn't make him happy."  
  
"Sounds like him. He's been using that loophole to fuck a real bitch at work, Eve." I gestured to my burns. "She's responsible for this. Guess I can't blame him. After a century of wanking off, I can see why he'd use every loophole he could find. Too bad he can't find anyone who actually wants to have sex with him. I can see why. Have you seen how wide he's gotten?"  
  
Darla gave me the hairy eye. "Better than being was big around as a limp noodle. And since you asked, I killed myself."  
  
I raised my eyebrows, or would have if they hadn't been burnt off. "You? What in the hell for? I can remember how much fun it was to be soul-free and tearing it up out there in the night. You had carte blanche."  
  
She didn't look surprised that I might have a soul. She could probably sense it like we had sensed Angel's when we drove him out of our family. I kinda felt bad about that now, having lived through it myself. "Soul free...there's the rub. Do you remember how you felt when you got your soul back?"  
  
"Fairly insane," I admitted. "And I wanted it gone, at least for a while even though it was what I thought I wanted. Then I started to see things like Angel does. The goodness changes you."  
  
"It changed me, too...only I was sharing a soul." Darla put her hand over mine, a comforting gesture maybe but since she ghosted through me it was more disturbing than anything.  
  
"Sharing?" I scowled. It didn't make sense and she didn't seem in a hurry to tell me all about it. I was getting a bad feeling about her being here. "Why are you haunting me, Darla?"  
  
"Because you need a little mothering." She seemed serious, which only made it more ludicrous. Darla, sweet and mother-like? Yeah, right.  
  
I laughed. "Since when have you been motherly?"  
  
Her brown eyes met mine. "Since I've had a son."  
  
I sobered. There wasn't a hint of deception in her voice, not a waiver in the intensity of her eyes but I didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "Seriously, Darla, what is this all about? I'm not in the mood for games."  
  
"And I wouldn't have expended the energy to hunt you down for a game. I have no idea how long I can stay in this plane and I don't like wasting time away from him. You've been tossed out of the family, Spike." She seemed grim, as if she actually cared about that. "You don't even know why your friends have turned on you." "Because I pissed off Angel. It's not bloody fair." I thumped my foot on the floor. "I didn't even do anything this time." She gave me a disbelieving look. I shrugged. "Okay, I've done plenty to the Poof trying to get that role in the prophecy but it barely fazed him. I follow one kid at a college and he loses his mind. Doesn't make sense but he managed to turn it into something big, big enough to turn the others against me."  
  
"And you probably deserve it for trying to diddle Angel out of what's his."  
  
"If you're trying to be motherly Darla, you suck at it," I said and she scowled. "Besides, there's no name in that prophecy. It could mean me just as easily as Angel."  
  
"And if you believed that, you'd just sit back and let it happen." She glanced off. I could tell she had something weighing down her heart. I knew the feeling. "And my coming here to help you to put out the fire you started might undermine Angel. I don't want to do that. I did love him, you know."  
  
I considered those words and the pain in her brown eyes. For a moment, I could see Buffy in Darla's petite form and golden tresses. Hell, Peaches really did have a preference. "I think you did."  
  
"I know what the prophecy says." She shrugged one shoulder. "As much as Lindsey told me. I want Angel to get his reward. But there's something more important to my heart and by helping you, I can fix something that's gone wrong."  
  
"Figured you had an ulterior motive to try and make me feel better." I smirked. She seemed hurt. I sighed and went to drape an arm over her shoulders then remembered she was a specter. "But I appreciate the effort. Usually you'd just manipulate me to do what you want. You were the queen of that."  
  
She laughed light like rain. "I guess I was. Do you want to get back into your new family?" She gave me a look a sympathy that was utterly touching because for once I believed Darla was concerned about someone other than herself.  
  
And like it or not, the big Poof was as close to family as I had. That doesn't mean I wouldn't screw him over in a heart beat. In my experience that's what families did more often than not. That's why cops fear domestic calls. "Yes I'd like that very much Great Grand Mummy," I said in my best Dru voice, which was admittedly not so good. I can't do high pitched and wispy well.  
  
Still it was enough to earn another evil eye from Darla. "When Dru set out to make herself a child I told her to pick the first drooling idiot who crossed her path and damned if she didn't."  
  
"I thought you were supposed to be making me feel better." I pouted.  
  
"Aren't I?" She gave me that fake sweet smile of hers. "If I were all sweet to you, you wouldn't know what to do."  
  
I laughed. "Good point. So how do I get back into the family? Fred is mad at me on account of Nancy boy. Wes only ever ignored me at best. I can still throw a good shag into Harmony but she's a follower. If the rest are mad at me she will be, too. I don't know about Gunn. He's hard to read."  
  
"Getting back in the family involves you bringing something to Angel's attention and he's not going to want to see it."  
  
I groaned, shifting around on my bed. "Bloody hell. Just want I wanted to hear. It'll be easier to go track down the Scoobies in Europe and hook back up with them."  
  
"Perhaps. Angel may not thank you for this since he wants to keep this secret." Darla's wraith hand ran up and down my arm. There was no sense of touch, which given my fired nerves that's good, but she knew she was asking a lot of me and was trying to be solicitous.  
  
"Darla, how is this going to get me back into the family? It sounds like it's just going to get me into worse trouble."  
  
I could see the regret in her eyes and the resolve as well. She was determined to get my help and that whetted my curiosity. "Nothing's easy, Spike. Think you can do it?"  
  
"Find me something I can't do when I put my mind to it," I bragged, trying to act like my old self.  
  
"Drooling idiot," she mumbled then smirked. "Do you want to know why I killed myself, who's soul I was sharing?"  
  
"I'm a mite curious, yeah."  
  
I sat there listening in total disbelief to her story about being pregnant and to whom. I was too stunned to talk. It sounded like a fairy tale, like the first time Angelus had told me about the Slayers. I hadn't wanted to believe in such a boogeyman but he had been so earnest I believed him just like I believed Darla now. But instead of making me want to cross the world and find it like Slayer tales had, I wanted to cross the world to get away from this, a child of two vampires. That had to be really wrong. "This is a bunch of bollocks," I said because that's what I wanted it to be.  
  
"Ever hear of the great potentate Ul-Thar?"  
  
I stuck a cigarette in the half-healed slit that was passing as my mouth. "Ain't he the bleeding eejit that was looking for the vampire messiah?"  
  
She slung back her blonde hair. I was reminded again of how pretty she was. "The child of two vampires, that's him. His followers showed up ready to kill me and worship my son."  
  
I shuddered. "Just got a vision of you as the vampiric Virgin Mary."  
  
"Not funny."  
  
"As funny as you are virginal, I guess." I took a long drag. "This is for real? There's a bouncing baby Peaches out there?"  
  
She swatted me and I was just as glad that went right through my chest. "Not exactly."  
  
She told me about her suicide and she seemed to tranquil about it; it erased my lingering doubts. She told me about being allowed to walk the earth as a ghost to be near her son, of his quick trip to hell that turned out less than quick on his side of the dimension, and of all the terrible things that happened after he came back. Damned, if she didn't make me feel sorry for Angel.  
  
"Makes sense now," I said. "Now I get why Angel beat the crap out of me, way worse than when he thought I was taking the damn Shanshu from him. Punk Boy is your kid."  
  
She nodded. "Angel thinks he's safe but he forgot one thing when he made the deal with Wolfram and Hart. They've always wanted our son, even before he was born. Connor could hold his own against them before Angel changed things."  
  
"And the Stepford Punk version doesn't stand a chance," I said.  
  
"Spike, I know what I'm asking you to do and how risky it is." She caught my hand in hers and I could almost feel her as if she was trying to make herself solid. "I'll never be able to thank you for this, other than to say I'll be grateful forever, and so will Angel, no matter what he says."  
  
"What make you think I'll say yes, that I care what you or Nancy boy thinks?"  
  
"Because Dru always said that its was your bright beautiful heart that drew her to you when you were human. She said you were filled with moonlight, roses and poetry. I believed her. You were too good to end up like this. Now that you have your soul back, that goodness won't let you sit back and not help."  
  
"You think I'm beautiful?" I couldn't believe I was hearing this. Darla thought I was a good person. I had spent two years trying to make Buffy and the others see it, maybe more. Someone finally believed in me.  
  
"I think you are Dru's dark poet, star shine in the darkness." Her hand moved over my scarred face. "You don't deserve this. Angel thought he was protecting his child."  
  
"He didn't do this." I fingered the burns on my neck. "And I can understand that. If someone had tried to hurt Dawn, I'd do the same and she's not even my daughter." That was true and if I were still the same vampire I had been, I would be humiliated by that confession but even before my soul, I had protected Dawn because I cared about her and her sister.  
  
"You are, at the heart of it, a good person and at the end of all of this, your friends and Angel will see that," Darla said, putting her arms around me. I wished I could feel them. "They'll be sorry for this." Darla got up and held out a hand to me. It was an empty gesture, of course, since she couldn't grab on. I got up with much stretching and cracking of scar tissue. This was getting old.  
  
"Where we going?"  
  
"To see what you need to show Angel. It only happens on Friday and Saturday so you don't have time to waste." 


	3. Plan of Action

CHAPTER THREE  
  
I followed her to my stolen car. She giggled in spite of herself at the sight of it as she ghosted inside. "It's stolen. You know this isn't my style," I said, her amused expression getting my back up. She just smiled and I sighed. "Am I heading to the college?"  
  
"You're not a drooling idiot after all." She smirked.  
  
"I'm beginning to know what Angel felt like when he was behind the wheel and I was the ghost riding shotgun. There's no way to give you the punch in the head you deserve."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure you were more annoying. You always were."  
  
"You know, for a woman who needs a huge favor, you sure are a mouthy bint." I started the car, or more appropriately, coaxed the wheezing, backfiring thing to life.  
  
"I'm putting Angel in your debt. Don't tell me that doesn't give you warm fuzzies." She was back to the wry look.  
  
I grinned. "Okay, so you aren't so bad at making people feel better."  
  
"Just because I left comforting you to Drusilla doesn't mean I don't know what makes you happy. I made a career out of knowing what makes men happy."  
  
Now there was a euphemism for being a whore if ever I heard one but I let it pass before Darla decided to go straight to Angel with this. I was curious as to why she hadn't but I wasn't about to ask and screw myself over. I had an idea anyhow. Angel didn't want to know whatever it is she was about to show me. He might not listen to her. Peaches was really stubborn when it came to stuff like that. Instead I asked something I really hadn't intended to but out of everyone, she would know how I had felt those weeks I spent in the state she was in now. "Are you afraid, Darla, of what waits when the Powers That Be pry you from this place?"  
  
She looked at me curiously. "Sometimes but I don't regret giving my life up. It was worth it. Connor is the one good thing Angel and I ever did together."  
  
"Didn't you say the boy's name was 'the Destroyer'? How good is that?"  
  
"Depends on if he's aimed at demons or humans." She covered her face for a moment and I thought she might actually cry. That would be something to see, since she kept stuff like that from me. She never showed me weaknesses. "Spike, if you and Angel are capable of being redeemed then one poor broken boy can be, too."  
  
"Never was one for redemption until the whole thing with Buffy." I fished for my cigarettes again. "And even then, sometimes I wonder was it just a prize to me or did I really honestly want it." "She must be an amazing Slayer to derail both Angelus and Spike," Darla said. "I'm less surprised she got you than I am about Angel."  
  
"Why do you say that?" I lit up, taking a healthy drag.  
  
"You've been in love with Slayers since you first learned about them. Tell me you wouldn't have fucked them before you killed them if you could have?"  
  
"Who said I didn't?"  
  
She rolled her eyes at me. "You haven't met a Slayer you didn't want to possess entirely until you tired of them."  
  
"I didn't want to possess Buffy," I lied. I had. I tried. I failed and in the end, I honestly didn't want to possess her. I wanted to love her but my love has never been pure or innocent and I think she knew that. That's why I didn't believe her when she said she loved me at the end and a good part of me didn't want it to be true. She deserved better than either me or Angel.  
  
"Stop here," she cried suddenly as we passed a closed drug store.  
  
"Why?" I obeyed, swinging back into the darkened lot.  
  
"Disposable cameras," Darla said. "You can't walk into an open store looking like this. You're missing half your face. We'll need to get a camera so you can make Angel believe you."  
  
"Makes sense."  
  
"It wasn't hard to break in and snag two of the throwaway cameras. I didn't know much about them so I picked up the ones that were supposed to do well in low light. When we got out on the road again Darla was silent, thinking about something, probably worrying about her kid. It was something I never expected to see in her and damned if it wasn't contagious. This tiny bit of goodness in me had been there even before the soul. It made me keep Dawn safe. Now that I have that sodding soul to go with that itty bit of natural goodness, I could feel Darla's pain, just what I didn't need on top of my own.  
  
She directed me to a parking lot then led the way across campus. There were more crowds to avoid than I was expecting. Stupid, it was a weekend, parties, keggers, senseless shagging, all the stuff the old Spike used to love. Colleges were a favored slayground of mine. Part of me still longed for it.  
  
As I followed Darla's lean body - I always did see why the Poof kept her around - I pulled my ball cap down low and kept to the shadows the best I could. Even without a mirror I knew I had to be horrific looking. Darla knew exactly where she was going, cutting across the grounds to a tall ugly building surrounded by hedges and loitering teens.  
  
She steered me deeper into the shadows and I saw a young woman sitting down on the lip of some stupid looking modern art sculpture containing fountain. Eve, is there ever a time she doesn't look like someone ready to shag you and climb over you to get one rung higher on the ladder? She had on a pink wool sweater to keep out what passed for winter chill in southern California. She was dressed for a night of romantic dining and maybe some theater.  
  
Punk Boy came out soon enough without his crowd of loser friends. His hair was combed into a more sedate, unspiked style, looking almost deadly dull in its normalcy. I preferred the other look just because I knew it was probably making Angel's skin crawl, go kid, go. I couldn't see Darla or Angel in this boy but still I believed Darla's story.  
  
I half expected Angel to be hanging around but I didn't spot him. He probably had followed me the time he caught me here. Eve didn't waste any time getting down to the dry humping with kid. I was waiting for them to fall backwards in the water. They didn't notice the flash of my crappy camera or any of the students hanging around. Doubt the kid had anything going on in his mind beyond the obvious, fucking Eve's arse off. I mean the boy was gagging for it, but what kid his age wasn't? Darla shifted nervously beside me and I glanced at her. She seemed highly embarrassed. Guess she noticed the kid had a lazy lob on. Eve sure as hell knew it, what with the way she fondled him.  
  
Eve opened what I thought was an ugly purse but turned out to be a soft- sided cooler. She pulled out some beers. What teenager could resist that? I almost missed what her hands were doing. She dropped something into the bottle. She gave it to the kid, teasing his crotch a little more, not a safe thing to do to a boy. What kind of control do they have any how? Of course she wasn't concerned about that, obviously since whatever she drugged him with hit like a sledgehammer. He was barely able to sit up on his own. She had to keep him from tumbling into the fountain. She got him to his feet and they were off toward the nearest parking lot.  
  
"Where is she taking him?" I asked.  
  
"Away from here."  
  
"I can't get back to my car in time to follow them," I said.  
  
"You don't need to, Spike." Darla hustled back the way we came. She suddenly faded from view then flickered back again. "Being able to do that allowed me to follow them previously. I know where she's taking him."  
  
Darla was tense once we got back to the car, snapping out directions but otherwise not talking at all. When we got there, I could understand why. There was a subtle Wolfram and Hart symbol on the building but I had never seen it before. I wondered if Peaches even knew it existed. She pointed up to the fourth floor. Usually scaling a wall wasn't so hard but given my burns it was fairly agonizing and slow going. But I managed to perch on a sill. Darla hung in the air next to me.  
  
I looked in the window and found myself staring in at a lab. They had the kid hooked up to all sorts of shite that I couldn't begin to fathom the purpose of but I recognized Knox. Either he didn't give a damn about using a kid as a guinea pig, par for the course from what I could see of Wolfram and Hart, or he thought Angel's brat was something other than human. I knew I wouldn't have time to get many pictures. I turned off the flash and snapped as many as I could. I didn't want to risk being spotted in the big window.  
  
I kicked away from the wall and dropped, hitting the ground running. Darla was in the car when I got there. I peeled away as best as the old banger was capable of then ragged it down the street. The purple monstrosity shuddered and creaked but it did its best to run. No one seemed to be following. I guess they hadn't seen me after all. Good. "Where to now?"  
  
"24-hour Wal-Mart," she said.  
  
"One hour photo?" I looked at her, waving a hand at my face. "I can't exactly walk in there looking like this."  
  
"Leave that to me."  
  
And I did. Just like Fred had helped me to concentrate enough to pick up things briefly, Darla managed it to pick up the camera and go inside without me. She looked exhausted as she ghosted back into the car.  
  
"Spent too much energy?" I asked.  
  
She nodded. "I have enough to go back in and get the pictures."  
  
"Guess that leaves getting money to me."  
  
"I'll help." Darla looked ready to drop off to sleep but I knew from experience ghosts can't do that. "And in case I forgot to say it, thank you, Spike. I know you don't have to do this."  
  
"True, and you didn't forget."  
  
She glanced at me out of the corner of her eye. "Can I tell you something?"  
  
I lit up a cigarette."We've an hour to kill."  
  
"You really aren't a drooling idiot." She smiled.  
  
I snorted, smoke curling out of my ruined nostrils. "Occasionally I am. Probably right now, agreeing to shove this in Angel's face. If I get staked before he sees these pictures, I'm going to haunt you."  
  
"Can you haunt a ghost?" She shrugged. "Haunt Angel again. It'll make you feel better." I nodded. "Its appeal quickly wears off. Did you know he liked my poetry?"  
  
"No. I didn't care for it," she said unapologetically. "But I liked that you thought to write it for Dru. I always did like how loyal you were to her, how you treated her like she was the most precious thing in the world. Just once, I would have liked someone to treat me like that."  
  
She sounded very sad and it occurred to me that as long as she had been alive or undead or whatever, that no one had really truly loved her. That was tragic somehow. I always did think Angel kept her around because she was his sire and that she was considered a prize because of her bloodlines.  
  
"Maybe the Master did and I've just forgotten it," she said softly. She glanced over at me. "Why do you really want the shanshu, Spike? Just because Angel does?"  
  
I hesitated. I honestly didn't know any more. That was certainly part of it. Part of it was to be human for Buffy and I knew that was stupid. If I were human, I'd end up like Riley, dumped to the side because I just couldn't keep up. "I don't know why I want it, Darla. I'm not even sure I do want to be human again. Angel said it was partially a curse and he could be more right than he knew. He never knew Anya. She was a vengeance demon who ended up human again. She was so scared of being mortal, of suffering pain and not being able to just rid herself of it with magic, of dying. She and I used to talk since who could know what it was like to have such a long life, to have seen as much as we have. Who else could understand what it was like to be so evil and now have to be good? She's dead now and I miss her," I said, knowing I was babbling. I shouldn't have lifted the lid off this can of suppressed emotion. "I think that's why I'm still here, Darla. Angel and I are alike in some fundamental ways, different in others but we share a history and a future whether we like it or not. When you get down to it, who else can understand our position in the world? Who else do we have to talk to?"  
  
She brushed her hand against my fingers, passing through them. "For now, you can talk to me."  
  
I stared at her like I had never seen her before. Darla the ice queen, the bint who always made me feel like I wasn't in her class, the one who was as responsible as anyone else for me picking up a low-class persona just to throw it in her face, was asking me to talk. For a moment I hesitated, then I started talking, telling her everything I would have shared with Dru had she been here, things I couldn't tell Angel because we were both too close to some of the people and events involved. She listened with minimal interruptions and most of those were soft words of solace. Spilling my guts inside a pathetic excuse of a car should have made me feel embarrassed or unmanly but it didn't. Just having someone to talk to, someone who could relate, made me feel better so much so that I hardly noticed the physical pain I was still in. Darla could be very tender and sweet when she wanted to be.  
  
Darla's hand found mine again. This time she had substance, cool like marble. I squeezed her fingers. "The hour's up, isn't it?"  
  
"And daylight will be here soon." We both got out of the car. Darla found a lone woman trying to get her packages in the car. She had a weary air, some poor working woman coming off a graveyard shift buying diapers and baby food before heading home to some too-small apartment, no doubt. Darla was crying on about losing her puppy and had the woman seen it running in the lot. It was enough to distract her until I could get into her purse and take a twenty. She had more but I didn't feel right taking it. Hell, I am turning into a righteous wanker.  
  
Seeing me move in back toward our car, Darla thanked the lady for her help and let her go on her way. I slipped the money into Darla's cold hand and she went back inside. She reappeared quickly. Half way back to the car I heard coins falling to the ground and the slap of something heavier. Darla couldn't hold onto her cohesiveness any longer. I went out and retrieved the change and our pictures. In the sickly glow of the parking lot lights I examined the pictures. They were dark and grainy but clear enough for our purposes.  
  
"I'll go right now to Wolfram and Hart and show him," I said, knowing that was a great risk. Angel could have me put out into the sun and in this shape I wasn't sure I could fight him.  
  
"She'll be there tomorrow night with our son again," Darla said.  
  
"I'll tell him," I said and Darla faded away. 


	4. Facing Facts

CHAPTER FOUR  
  
What in the hell am I getting myself into? The sun was trying to thread its way through the tall buildings when I abandoned the purple car and darted into Wolfram and Hart's main building, the pictures clutched in a hand that had decided it needed to peel at least one more time before it'd be content to be healed. The guards paused at seeing me and some of the lawyers and paralegals split like the Red Sea as I headed for the elevators. Yep, I'm still double-bagger ugly from the burns.  
  
Wes and Fred were in the office with Angel when I strode past Harmony. She dropped her blood down her pristine baby blue dress seeing me. You know you have to be uglier than a bulldog chewing a wasp when you can scare a vampire. Fred gasped. Even Wes raised an eyebrow.  
  
Peaches got to his feet, his big hands clenching the edge of his desk. It'd only be a few seconds before those hands were around my neck. "What did I tell you about coming back here, Spike?"  
  
"Your old lady sent me," I said, waving the pictures. "She had something she wanted me to show you."  
  
"What would Buf...."Angel's jaw clamped shut. "Darla?"  
  
"That's not possible. Holtz killed her," Wesley said. I was surprised he knew that given what Darla had told me about the spell. I guess Wolfram and Hart left in Holtz and just removed the bit about the pregnancy. I wondered what they thought happened to Holtz.  
  
"This is best without the audience," I said, waving a hand at Wes and Fred. Both of them bristled.  
  
"We'll continue this later, guys. Spike and I need to talk," Angel said.  
  
"Are you sure?" Wes asked and Angel nodded.  
  
Fred shot me a guilty look. "Spike, if I knew-"  
  
"When I say I need help, Fred, I usually mean it," I blew her off and her head drooped as she left.  
  
When they were gone, Angel grated out, "What are you playing at Spike?"  
  
I tossed the pictures on his desk, one by one. "Nothing. Darla's spirit found me last night to tell me why you tried to beat the shit out of me then she wanted me to come here and tell you that you're getting screwed."  
  
"Why would she do that?" he asked, stubbornly not looking at the pictures.  
  
"She feels bad I got kicked out of the family." I tried for a grin but who knew what it looked like without lips. Angel's brow lowered. "You're not family, Spike."  
  
"But he is." I shoved a picture into Angel's face. It was an ugly one of Connor strapped onto Wolfram and Hart's examine table with Knox drawing blood.  
  
He stumbled back a step then snatched the picture away from me. I might as well have stuck a stake in him. Angel fell into his chair, his whole body shaking. This is what he must have looked like when Willow told him Buffy had died. This was the worst I've ever seen him hurting and I didn't even enjoy it. His hands moved over the other pictures, trembling as they went.  
  
"How...Darla...you're not lying." He looked up at me, begging to say yes I was.  
  
"Not about this. She'll go meet him again tonight, Angel, at least according to Darla. I don't know what they're doing to him in that lab. Darla didn't say. She probably doesn't know. Science isn't Darla's thing. I know Eve is drugging him and she's shagging the kid. You decide which is worse."  
  
"I made a deal." I had never heard Angel sound so defeated. I'd laugh, only I was feeling too sympathetic, damn my soul. Occasionally it got in the way.  
  
"Darla said you forgot about how much Wolfram and Hart wanted the kid. She understands, given what was happening at the time, that you thought you were doing the right thing."  
  
"I was trying to save him."  
  
"Well, you're getting another chance. This time you might want to think it through and remember who your real friends are," I said, scratching at my itching head. It felt like I had rolled in a patch of poison ivy, thanks to all the healing skin trying to shed the dead tissue.  
  
"And that would be you?" His voice filled with venom. His little brown eyes fixed on me.  
  
"No, well, maybe. I'm family. That's different." I shrugged. "I meant Wes, Fred and Gunn. Giles, Buffy and the rest. They can help you come up with a way to help the kid."  
  
"His name is Connor," Angel snarled.  
  
"Whatever. My point is, if you leave Connor like he is, he'll never be able to keep Wolfram and Hart from getting him and you know they will. Even if you kill Eve and Knox for this betrayal, you know the Senior Partners will send others. You need to bring the kid home."  
  
Angel shook his head more to clear it than to say no to me. "What are you getting out of this, Spike?"  
  
"Nothing," I said and he gave me a look. "Seriously, no angles, no one upmanship, no 'I've got Angel by the short and curlies,' no I want the Shanshu. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do and because you're my sire in all ways that count. When we were fighting over that cup of Mountain Dew, I said that you were to blame for all the evil shite I've done. I said it to hurt you, which I'm not even sure why it would except you're you and you like wearing that hair shirt." I paused at his snort. "But it's true whether we like it or not. I am what you shaped me to be. Maybe some of the good I am now is your doing, too. Maybe it's what's left of William. Who knows? Who cares? But I saw Darla acting more human now that she's a ghost than ever I've seen before and sod it, she's right. Someone needs to stop it so she volunteered me."  
  
"Risky, given I was ready to tear you to shreds and throw what's left out in the mid day sun," Angel said.  
  
"So I told Darla. She didn't much care and I gambled on you being reasonable." I sat on the edge of his desk.  
  
That Neanderthal brow of his furrowed. "Why?"  
  
I laughed, still scratching. "It's been said I'm as bloody thick as brick."  
  
"No argument," he said as my scratching fingers peeled a huge hunk of dead flesh off my scalp, down my face and neck. I dropped it in his dust bin and he made a face. "What the hell happened to you? As much as I wanted to, I didn't do this."  
  
"Little Miss Eve so I want her dead almost as much as you do," I joked and he didn't laugh. Damn, he really did want her dead. I'm no longer chipped so I could kill her if I wanted to and I really felt so inclined.  
  
"Harmony," Angel bellowed. He was always good at that. "Get Spike something to eat. You, rest up. When the sun sets, you're taking me to where you found them." He shoved me off the desk.  
  
"You got it, Peaches." I still sounded a little mocking. I can't help it. Angel just brought it out in me.  
  
I left. Wes and Fred were still out in Harmony's office. Harm was busy heating me something from her own private stock.. She kept a little fridge and microwave by the coffee maker now. "Fred, sorry about earlier. You have no idea how much this hurts," I said, waving at my burns. "You have anything that might help?"  
  
She bobbed her head. "Come to the lab with me."  
  
Harmony shoved the blood into my hand. The mug was deliciously warm. "Thanks, Harm."  
  
"I'm still mad you upset Angel." Harmony pouted at me.  
  
"Understood."  
  
I drank greedily as I followed Fred. She gave me some medical soap and brushes and silvadene creme which she said helped burns heal. She didn't know if it worked on vampires. She gave me dressings, too, then she decided to hang around and help me take care of the burns.  
  
I got into the shower in my suite and started scrubbing with the medical soap. I had to grit my teeth against the pain. Flesh globbed off, hitting the tub's porcelain, finally stopping it up. Blood ran, turning the puddle pink. I got out, dried off and let Fred bandage me up. We were both oddly silent. She was still angry with me on Angel's account and probably guilty, too, that she hadn't offered to help when I asked. I didn't press her. I kinda liked her. She was sweet so I'd let her take her time and decide how she felt.  
  
Once she had me bandaged up, and I probably did look like Claude Raines at this point or maybe Boris Karloff, I tumbled into bed, dead asleep almost instantly. 


	5. Family again

CHAPTER FIVE  
  
I slept like a rock until I woke up with Peaches shaking me.  
  
"Get up," he demanded, nearly shoving me out of bed.  
  
"She won't be there for hours yet," I muttered, getting up, my bandages loose. I pulled them off, taking sheets of dead flesh with them. The burns no longer smelled as rank as they had yesterday.  
  
His beady eyes narrowed. "Don't give a damn."  
  
"Fair enough." I handed him the silvadene and the gauze. Angel was no where near as gentle as Fred had been in fixing me up.  
  
Angel smoked most of my cigarettes as we waited on campus for Eve to show. Punk Boy and his friends were out and about this time, messing around on their skateboards, trying to jump stuff and otherwise be stupid and annoying. Why I was expecting Angel's son to have brains when his parents didn't, I had no idea. He had made a change since the last night, a fresh eyebrow piercing. Maybe I'd like the kid after all. Punk Boy's eye was bruised looking and Angel kept muttering about the damn eyebrow ring. I just kept adding fuel by reminding him about the time I had pierced my eyebrow back in the 70's. Angel was on such a burn I could have used him to beat back the slight winter chill in the night air.  
  
Over the course of the evening several young birds came up to Angel, alone or in packs, all flirty and sweet then they caught sight of my bandaged face or his giant scowl and usually backed off. I thought Eve had somehow caught on that I had seen them last night since she still wasn't here and the moon was high in the sky. By now, Angel's brat had gone back into his dorm and got cleaned up and was waiting by the fountain. I thought Angel was gonna shit a brick when the kid came out in punk pants that were nothing but black cotton with straps with bat buckles that ran from thigh to where they disappeared into romper stomper boots that were a match to mine. Fuck knew what fetish club the kid thought he was going to but he wore the purple velvet poet's shirt, a waistcoat and lace cravat. A crystal- topped walking stick completed the shout-out to centuries past. What was the appeal of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to these Goth kids? I lived in the Victorian era and there was no way I'd trade it for today's luxuries. The kid even had blue lipstick on this time and his fingernails were painted black. In the lights on the fountain we could see he was wearing contacts that made his almond-shaped eyes look like they contained flames.  
  
"Didn't you have a jacket like that when you were his age?" I asked, snickering.  
  
"Shut up, Spike," he hissed.  
  
"Oh, come on, tell me you don't think this is funny. I like the look," I said and I did. I could see me wearing this sort of stuff if I was out to play a part. There are plenty of vampire wannabe's ready to give it up to me just like those morons back in Sunnydale but I didn't do that kind of thing any more. "I swear he's your kid," he muttered to me. "Even has your build."  
  
"Like I would have shagged Darla."  
  
"In a heart beat, if you had one." He snorted. "She always said you were cutest when you were begging for sex."  
  
"Bitch," I said lightheartedly, taking a cigarette before grandsire smoked them all. "It doesn't look like they're actually hurting him when they take him to that lab. Darla's spied on him the morning after and I think he thinks he just doesn't have a head for alcohol, which is why he always wakes up with no memories."  
  
Angel ratcheted up the internal fire. I could be warm in an Alaskan snowstorm at this point. "I want to know what tests they're running."  
  
"You'll have to ask Fred's help." I held up my hands to ward off protests of bringing someone closer to the inner circle. Fred was smart enough to figure things out if he sent her on this trail. "Computers and me, don't mix. That's why I had Red."  
  
He snorted again then stiffened. I followed his gaze to wear Eve was walking toward the fountain looking like she was ready to head out to fetish night at the Inferno. I had to hold Angel back when the snogging started.  
  
"Do you want to see what happens?" I asked. "She's not going to kill him...too valuable and you know it."  
  
I didn't think Angel was going to make it. I'm not sure I would have in his place and it was Dawnie being taken advantage of. After Eve drugged the kid again, I directed Angel to the secret lab. I expected him to bust in, go through the window, something. Instead, he just watched calmly and we went home.  
  
"I know what I have to do," he whispered and disappeared.  
  
Fred was waiting for me at my door when I got there. She seemed nervous. "Spike, can we talk?"  
  
I nodded, opening the door. "What's on your mind?"  
  
"Maybe I was too quick to side with Angel. He didn't exactly tell us what had happened." Fred tangled some of her long hair around a fist. "Wes kinda thought fights between you two were common."  
  
I rolled my eyes. "They are."  
  
"I should have gotten your side of it and I'm sorry." She lightly put her hand on my arm.  
  
I waved her off. "Don't worry about it."  
  
"It's just that we're really protective of Angel," she said, quickly.  
  
"He inspires that sort of thing." I shrugged, jealous of that talent. I just couldn't inspire that in people.  
  
A tender expression touched her face. "Is there anything I can do?"  
  
"Actually I think these dressings need changed. The burns are almost not hurting so you tell me what they looks like. I can't see most of them."  
  
Fred helped me take off the bandages. From her face, I could tell my own face must still need some work. "Your lips are trying to grow back."  
  
I touched my mouth; at least it wasn't bare teeth any more."It'll take a while."  
  
"How did this happen, Spike?" she asked gently, dabbing me with silvadene.  
  
"Can't tell you." I wasn't sure if Angel wanted what Eve had done to be to be known because they'd be wondering why nothing had been done in retaliation. "Can't tell you where Angel and I went tonight. That's his story and I think he'll tell you when he's ready."  
  
Fred sighed. "I'm tired of secrets."  
  
"Sometimes they're necessary." I felt bad, seeing her disappointed look. "Manchester United is on tonight. I have some Merlin's ale. Willow sent it. She thought the name was cute. Want to hang out?" I asked in way of making up.  
  
She shoved her hair back behind her ears which I wished she wouldn't do. It accentuated her pointed face but not in a good way. "What's Manchester United?"  
  
I winced. "Girl, you have a lot to learn. Have a seat. I'll grab the beers."  
  
Fred and I watched some football before she headed off. We had fun. Fred was even more giggly and chatty when she was drunk. Just hanging out like we were old mates made me I feel much better for having had her here. I was busy getting drunk, screaming at the ballplayers on the telecast - things just weren't the same since Beckham was traded- when Darla made a reappearance.  
  
"I see this hasn't changed." She waved a hand at the screen. "You and those infernal games. You truly are a drooling idiot."  
  
I smirked over my shoulder at her. "It's too late, Darla. After last night, I know you care about me." Rolling her eyes, she sat beside me. "What did Angel do?"  
  
"Went to the college, followed them to the lab and then we came back here."  
  
Darla's eyes went wide. "That's it?"  
  
"No."  
  
We both turned. I hadn't heard Angel come into my suite. He came over to the couch. He gazed more tenderly at Darla than I had ever seen him look before. He stroked her hair just lightly enough not to pass through her head and ruin the effect.  
  
"I almost didn't believe Spike had seen you." He sat on the loveseat, helped himself to a beer and a cigarette. Peaches was stressed out totally. "I've already spoken to Giles and Willow. They're working on how to undo the spell, trying to help me figure out a way to keep it from going sour this time." He took a swig of the beer. "I'm still trying to figure out how to tell my friends here."  
  
"You'll think of something," Darla said, soothingly.  
  
"You'll be here?" Angel asked.  
  
"It's hard for me to stay visible," she admitted. "But I can if it helps you. I'll always be here to watch over him."  
  
Angel nodded and took a drag on his cigarette. "Spike, I know I've never really wanted you here. I sure as hell don't want to be in competition with you over the shanshu and I never want to even so much as think about you with Buffy. But that aside, I'm glad you were around. I wouldn't have known...they could still be." He swallowed hard.  
  
"I know. You don't have to actually say it. It's too weird anyhow, you being nice to me." I shuddered. "Are you saying I get to come home?"  
  
"I'm saying I'm going to need help with the youngest member of our family. Think you're up to it?" He actually met my eyes, which he rarely did when he was asking something of me. It always embarrassed him to ask for help.  
  
"Uncle Spike," I said, kicking my feet up on the table. "I like the sound of that."  
  
Angel made a face and Darla shivered all over. "Never ever say that again," Angel said.  
  
"I'll buy him a new eyebrow ring for Christmas," I said. "Wonder if he's pierced anything else. I know this place that sells..."  
  
"I'm warning you, Spike." Angel's teeth were showing and that wasn't no damn smile.  
  
I laughed. It was already feeling like old times, feeling like it should. "And you owe me a pack of silk cuts."  
  
"These are convenient store generics," Angel said, pointing at me with the cigarette.  
  
"Yeah, and you're replacing the pack you smoked with Silk Cuts."  
  
He rolled his eyes. "So long as I never hear the words Uncle Spike again. Besides, he'd be your uncle. You're the unwanted nephew sister Dru should never have had." He levered his big butt up off my couch and paused to give me a pat on the shoulder. This was so weird. He reached out to Darla and their fingers intermixed and moved through one another and then he was gone.  
  
"Thank you, Spike." Darla got up and leaned over to me. Her lips were cool and soft when she pressed them to my forehead. "Feeling better?"  
  
"Like family again," I said and she was gone. I didn't know how Angel was going to work it all out. That was his problem but I would be here to help. Who knows, maybe two vampires can get the same reward in the end. Content, I settled back with my beer, my fags and my boys in Manchester United. I was family again, Angel owed me and things felt right with the world. 


End file.
